David Wong: Level three.

Steve Gooding: Some of us are entirely unpersuaded that level three makes any sense at all. I accept all of the reassurances set out by David, but you should consider for a moment the Department for Transport’s own research showing that you are much more likely to kill someone when travelling at 30 mph than at 20 mph. I wonder if, at 38 mph, the window being created by Audi in which its system can operate is going to be too narrow. I am not sure that I have ever seen a dual carriageway in an urban area that is free-flowing with clear signs in this country. I think, personally, that we ought to say that level three is something that we do not want.

David Wong: We are informed that the policy intent behind the Bill is to do with the new insurance framework —the single insurer model framework—to cover level four and above. Insofar as that is reflected in the spirit and letter of the Bill, then that is adequate because it is at level four that the human being is—technically speaking—out of the loop, to use engineering parlance. The human being has surrendered control to the vehicle. At anything below level four, the human being is still technically responsible and in the loop. So for these purposes the Bill is adequate.

Karl Turner: Q  On charging infrastructure, we have just heard evidence from the Petrol Retailers Association which is very worried about being mandated to have charging points on the forecourts of their members. What is your prediction of what would happen if we did not mandate them to do that? If it was not required by law physically to invest and have them on their forecourts, would they bother?

Oliver Letwin: Q  I am delighted to hear what you say and absolutely agree with you. If the problem of range anxiety is addressed or partially addressed by fast charging at service stations and so on, we are still left with—I think you said—40% of homes that do not have off-street car-parking. Have you done any assessment of the kinds of costs involved for the distribution network operators if over the period between now and 2040 there was a roll-out of universal charge points on the street in towns and cities—probably not all areas—where there is lawful parking?

Marcus Stewart: In some of the work that we have done when we have projected forward and looked at various energy scenarios, we see automated vehicles as having an impact on total energy usage. More automated vehicles, and clarity around the question, will allow different business models to come forward. Car-sharing is more likely as part of that, and that will reduce the overall demand on the energy system, but we believe that it is still quite a long way out—maybe 2030-plus—before we start seeing any significant impact from that.

Robert Evans: I would just like to add that on the one hand I am very reassured by my colleague’s contribution, which recognises that this is a market opportunity and that we have members who are very keen to provide the charging technology and the market mechanisms that would allow a motorist to make their electric energy—their battery—available, so that they do not charge at night, but they can provide power back to the grid when it is needed and manage those smart services.
We are concerned about mandating a specific technology. There is a context around the Bill that says it will mandate a certain technology or approach. We would like to see a recognition of the need to create a market rather than have a situation where, for example, a DNO can effectively turn off charging for somebody because they feel that that is necessary under certain conditions without involving the motorist or without market mechanisms coming in in the first place. We are particularly keen that this paves the way for a market-based approach. We welcome variable tariffs and vehicle to grid technology and we see the storage of electric vehicles as exactly what you need in an energy system with a high element of intermittency, as we add more and more renewables. The storage element is going to be a lot more valuable and there need to be market mechanisms to unlock that, rather than a mandated approach that is purely a situation where someone can turn off as they choose to, without the motorist or business—

Suleman Alli: It is a bit like the concept of offset mortgages in the financial services sector, where you pay your salary into an account and that offsets against the mortgage interest you pay. We are starting to see a new business model emerge where people say, “We can give you price certainty or reduced energy bills if you plug your vehicle in and allow us to provide services to the wider network operators or the system operators.
I think the market will innovate and start to provide those services. We are already seeing that in the internet market, for example. Some of the trials we are doing will look exactly at that area. It is intuitive for us to think that if you have an electric vehicle you are going to go home and plug it in straightaway. The research that we have undertaken shows there is a diversity. When you have a large population of EVs, not everybody goes home and charges at the same time. In fact, we have seen about 30% of the impact materialise—of the capacity of charge that has been installed. There is an element of diversity that we incorporate into our planning that is based on evidence from the trials we have undertaken.

Marcus Stewart: From a national grid point of view, my role is to balance the network and ensure that the energy is balanced. We have a transmission owner part that would own the high voltage network, and certainly the element up to a connection. Anything beyond the  connection is available for third party competition. Any service provider could put that in. A deregulated version of the national grid or another third party could put that in. Our primary role is the reinforcement element upstream to support that.

Marcus Stewart: It certainly makes sense to look at where there is good capability on the local or national network, and to consider that in respect of good accessibility for people; for them to be able to come in, connect and charge up their cars. I would expect those to be offering the early take-up points. Effectively there would be a least cost route to getting fast charging points delivered, in particular. A number of parties would have to come together and look at those opportunities: the national grid, local network operators, charge point owners, service station owners and people like that. That would make sense.

Stan Boland: While we are testing it. We are talking about a period when we are testing the capability of the vehicle in our existing cities. It is a level 4—a highly automated or fully autonomous system—but for the period between now and a regulatory capability of doing this and, moreover, underwriting the risk of it, we have to have a driver in the car to take over.

John Hayes: Q  I have three questions. First, you made an interesting case in response to questions from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Eltham about what you see as the likely development in autonomous vehicles. I will put two scenarios to you, and I would ask you to describe the most likely one. There is an instinctive, intuitive view that autonomy will grow gradually, partly because that is more likely to lead to public acceptance. So rather in the way that assisted parking or sat-nav or cruise control have become increasingly routine, other aspects of autonomy will be added to that. Autonomous vehicles will sort of creep on us.
There is another view that we may go straight to a kind of autonomous vehicle. Indeed I have looked at some of the R and D on that. As you may know, there is an entirely autonomous vehicle at Greenwich supported by Greenwich council, with some Government funding too. That is a vehicle that travels on a straight run of road that is entirely autonomous. You get into it, and it does what it says on the tin. Which of the two scenarios is the most likely, in your view? Or are they most likely to develop in parallel?

John Hayes: Q  My second question is about software. We debated this to some degree today. Presumably, the challenge is to develop sufficiently sophisticated software to anticipate scenarios encompassing all kinds of different eventualities. An interesting question was put earlier by the hon. Member for Eltham about the element of human drudgery in driving when faced with a dilemma, where you would hit traffic rather than a child, or you might swerve and possibly cause a more serious accident. The way that scenario planning is written into software would require hundreds of thousands of scenarios being tested. I know there is R and D being undertaken in this area. Would you briefly describe that to us?